On August 2014 a common topic of conversation and on social media was the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. People from all around the world started posting videos and challenging their friends and family to do the challenge and donate money to the ALS Association. Even celebrities, actors, musicians, athletes and politicians joined in. From President Barack Obama to Oprah to Bill Gates, everybody was getting engaged and spreading awareness of ALS.

It all started when Pete Frates, a 29-year-old Massachusetts resident diagnosed with ALS, started posting about it on social media with his father’s help. Frates was diagnosed with neurodegenerative disease in 2012, it has no cure. He is now paralyzed; eats through a feeding tube and cannot talk. Since then, the ALS Association received $49M between July 29 and August 20, doubling the $19.4M the ALS Association received in all of 2013. By the end of the month the ALS Association announced that donations exceeded $100M.

“One of the reasons it’s been so successful is that it started organically, with one individual and his family. It’s been tremendous to see the outpouring of support,”  – according to chief communication officer of the ALS Association, Carrie Munk.

This particular “campaign” probably wouldn’t have had the same results had it been for a brand. However, since it’s such an easy process, you get nominated, you do the challenge and/or donate money and then you nominate three more people it is more likely to get engaged with the movement. The simplicity of doing the challenge made it even more appealing. It’s very simple and for people that just want to help but don’t want to take great measures to do so this is perfect.

“People want to do something for the world. They want to contribute, but they want it to be easy, It’s slacktivism: having something that makes you feel good but isn’t too hard to accomplish.” – said Christine Outram, VP, invention director at DeutschLA.

It creates a conversation that would have not been happening if it weren’t for this challenge. Also when people get nominated they feel that obligation to do so. It also ignites that competitive spirit that makes them want to participate in it. I know I had to do it when I got nominated. My friends were counting on my video or my donation and I couldn’t let them down plus I had the satisfaction of knowing that I gave my time and money for a cause that really needs attention.

“It’s the added factor of peer pressure and time sensitivity that I believe has made this go viral,” said Amber Osborne, CMO of Seattle-based social media management tool Meshfire.

Celebrities also played a big role in this. They associated their image to a good cause while also influencing others to do the same. “If Oprah just poured a bucket of ice water on her head then I should too!” It just goes to show how big of an impact certain people can have on others. Also since it was such an impactful cause, the world got to see how Lou Gehrig’s disease (how it’s commonly known for) not only affects the person that suffers from it but how it affects their family as well. It is a disease that doesn’t have a cure and with the Ice Bucket Challenge it gave people hope to find one. Once you give people hope they will hold on to it no matter what.

This really gave a lesson for marketers. Once you have a good reason to make people want to get involved with your brand or cause they will. Also with the increased use of mobile phone and mobile social media platforms the act of instantly sharing content and viewing it helped it become viral the way it did.

Here’s a recap.

Objective:

• Create awareness of the disease
• Encourage donations to the ALS Association

Results:

• More than $100 million in donations in a single month
• Over $220 million raised for ALS
• Largest medical fund raising campaign in history
• Increased ALS awareness
• 2.4 million videos uploaded to Facebook
• Over 28 million people joined the conversation on Facebook including posts, likes, comments or likes on challenge posts.
• Visits to the ALS Wikipedia page soared from 163k views to nearly 2.9M in August

Strategy:

There wasn’t a particular strategy since it did start of organically. It probably had such an impact just because of that. People want to help out but sometimes are lazy about it and this viral “campaign” gave them the chance to have fun with it, feel part of the conversation and donate however much they wanted to through their website. It also increased awareness tremendously for a disease that not many people even knew about it.

Lessons learned:

Positive

• People want to go good and therefore will likely get involved with socially responsible events.
• Word of mouth can travel very fast and maybe be even more impactful. People trust their friends and their friends’ opinions.
• People feel peer pressure from their friends to participate when nominated
• The fact that they had 24hrs to post their video or donate made the movement work faster and reach more people.

Negative:

• Since it was an organic earned media there was no particular control as to what was being posted, but thankfully it worked out for them.
• Brand message can be lost and/or swayed.

At the end of the day the ALS Association got in return something they never expected. They knew that the chances of recreating this was very slim so they just enjoyed the moment. ALS is now a known topic of conversation due to this viral social media “campaign”. The fact that it wasn’t branded at all for me just makes it even better. It was all user-generated content that created this conversation. The power of social media, where will it take us next?